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A.C.L.U. Board Members Debate Limits on Their Own Speech

Several board members of the American Civil Liberties Union expressed concerns at a meeting yesterday over proposed standards that would prohibit board members from publicly criticizing the organization's policies and internal operations.

"I cannot vote for these proposals, as I have violated them nearly every time I have written an op-ed piece or spoken to the press," said Mary Ellen Gale, an at-large member.

Bennett Hammer, a board member representing the organization's New Mexico affiliate, cited examples of decisions in the last few years that he said had embarrassed the A.C.L.U. and contended that adopting the proposals would be yet another of "the things that have made us a laughingstock with the public."

The board nonetheless voted against motions to strike the controversial provisions from the proposals and instead opted for further discussion.

Emily Whitfield, an A.C.L.U. spokeswoman, said the failure of the motions was not an endorsement of the proposals. "A vote at this early stage would have been a departure from the board's deliberative process, and to suggest otherwise would be unfair and misleading," she wrote in an e-mail message.

One of the provisions said, "a director may publicly disagree with an A.C.L.U. policy position, but may not criticize the A.C.L.U. board and staff."

Another said, "Where an individual director disagrees with a board position on matters of civil liberties policy, the director should refrain from publicly highlighting the fact of such disagreement."

The provisions have attracted criticism from several newspaper editorial boards, members and donors, who said they clashed with the A.C.L.U.'s historic defense of free speech.

"I truly believe the A.C.L.U.'s finest moment was its defense of the Nazi party," said Alan Kahn, a longtime A.C.L.U. member, referring to the organization's legal support of the party's right to march through a heavily Jewish Chicago suburb in the 1970's. "How can the A.C.L.U. not support the same right for its board members?"

Mr. Kahn, a retired Wall Street executive, said he was working to form a group to provide external oversight of the organization's governance. "This is too important an institution," he said. "I can't just sit by and let it go awry."

The controversy over the proposals even persuaded Ira Glasser, the former executive director of the A.C.L.U., to attend the meeting yesterday, despite an oath he made at his retirement five years ago to stay away. "I had never thought I'd come to another board meeting," Mr. Glasser said, "but I came to listen to this debate because I had received an unusual amount of calls and e-mails asking me what was going on at the A.C.L.U., and I decided to come and see for myself."

The provisions aimed at regulating board members' public speech are part of a broader set of proposals intended to define the rights and responsibilities of board members, and members of the committee that drafted them said they were meant to be guidelines, not policy.

"Perceiving this to be a policy does laden this with considerable significance that we never intended," Calien Lewis, a committee member, said.

But some board members said the report and its proposals would have the effect of policy, particularly if the board voted on them. "Whether we call it a policy or not, this is a statement of what we stand for as the A.C.L.U.," said Adrian White, a lawyer who represents the organization's New York affiliate on the board.

Eight local affiliates — Illinois, Louisiana, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Ohio, South Carolina, Virginia and Washington, D.C. — passed resolutions objecting to the parts of the committee report that would limit board members' speech. "We wanted to send a clear message of what we didn't think the board should be doing," said Bruce W. Gilchrist, president of the board of the Washington affiliate.

Some affiliates also opposed a proposal that would sanction the destruction of tapes of board meetings once minutes were compiled. Members plan to discuss that proposal when the meeting, a regular quarterly gathering of the full board, continues today in New York.

"The A.C.L.U. of Louisiana believes that a full and accurate record of A.C.L.U. national board meetings must be retained and preserved to protect the historical record," the Louisiana affiliate's resolution said.

The committee was formed last year, after board leaders decided not to pursue disciplinary action against two board members who had criticized them, the board at large and the executive director of the organization, Anthony D. Romero.

Instead, they appointed the committee to set standards to determine when board members could be suspended or ousted. The committee rejected that rationale as its guiding principle, but several board members said its proposals would nonetheless be used for that purpose.

Many board members, however, acknowledged the need for more formal board orientation procedures. "I totally agree about the need for guidelines and processes so dissident members know what process they should follow," said Luz Buitrago, an at-large member.

A version of this article appears in print on , on page A19 of the New York edition with the headline: A.C.L.U. Board Members Debate Limits on Their Own Speech. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe